Jonathan Rowson

Greetings!

My most recent book, The Moves that Matter, is an attempt to make sense of what chess taught me about life in a way that might be useful for others. It's an accidental memoir and an unconventional self-help book, animated by dispatches from the chess world. I would like to think it's about chess in the same way that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about motorcycle maintenance; chess informs the setting but is incidental to the plot.

I hope you like it, and I would be very grateful if you can leave your feedback here.

More generally, I'm a philosopher, chess Grandmaster and father, who hails from Aberdeen in Scotland but now lives in London. My USP is that I am chess Grandmaster, and I was British Chess Champion from 2004–2006, but chess feels more like my past than my future. I have degrees from Oxford, Bristol and Harvard universities, and I was formerly Director of the Social Brain Centre at the RSA and an Open Society Fellow.

These days I am the co-founder and Director of Perspectiva, a research institute that examines the relationship between complex global challenges and the inner lives of human beings. I am also a father of two sons and generally busier than I would like to be, but grateful for the problems I have.

Warm wishes,

Jonathan.